


on with the show.

by lexorcist



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Billy Hargrove Redemption, Brain Damage, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Parent-Child Relationship, Post-Season/Series 03, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-06-26 06:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19762063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lexorcist/pseuds/lexorcist
Summary: A series of unrelated, post-season three, Billy Lives!/Billy-centric oneshots cross posted from Tumblr.





	1. friends.

**Author's Note:**

> Original post/request: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186165475825/hi-are-you-by-chance-doing-any-billy-fics-if  
> Fic requests are open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

Billy drives slower than ever- slower, Max thinks, than a car should be allowed to go. His hands, though, go white at the knuckles from the strength of his grip around the steering wheel. His jaw, too, is tight and tense. Max watches him, studies his profile- the sharp lines not just from lost weight (healing from a blow to the chest does not allow much room for bench pressing, and he has only just started to eat normally again) but from taut nerves stretched through every inch of his body. The radio is silent. The only sound is the gentle roll of the tires and the occasional revved engine and obscenity shouted from the rare passing car. Five times Max has opened her mouth to speak- to ask if he is okay, maybe even to joke about the number on the odometer, but each time she stops herself. Billy’s moods have always been difficult to gauge, but today she thinks she knows exactly what he’s feeling, and she doesn’t think he’d take well to even the lightest of jokes. 

The car jerks to a stop. The sudden motion sends Max forward and she catches herself on the dashboard as Billy throws the Camaro in park. 

“Woah,” Max says, the first word spoken since they left home. She glances outside and sees nothing but trees. She looks out the back windshield to the barren road behind them, then to the unfurling ribbon of gray ahead. “Um. We’re not there yet.”

She looks to Billy, expecting some smartass retort, some sharp-edged comment, but he doesn’t even seem to have heard her. He is leaning back in his seat, staring down at his hands on the wheel, and Max feels her heart sink right down into her stomach.

“Billy?” When he doesn’t respond, she reaches out to touch his shoulder. Through his thick flannel shirt, she feels his coiled muscles. She feels a tremor in them, snaking through them. 

“I don’t know about this,” he says. It’s the same song-and-dance she’s heard for weeks. He’s not ready, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea, he doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to face the others. He doesn’t want to see them. 

“We’re practically there,” Max says, keeping her voice low.

“Max,” Billy says, that familiar edge creeping into his voice. It’s come back in drips and drabs since the hospital released him with as a clean a bill of health as they could (encouraged, of course, by the father who didn’t want to spend more money on nightly stays when all the staff did was “ _pump the kid with painkillers to shut him up. think we can’t do that for him at home?_ ”, though Max isn’t sure she’s seen Billy pop a single pill since getting home). 

“Billy,” she says, firm and even. “Come on. They know. They know it wasn’t you.” Billy shakes his head, and before he can speak again Max goes on. “They want to talk to you. El- she wants to talk to you.”

Max thinks that that’s what Billy is afraid of, because El is the one who got inside his head, the one who helped break him free, the one who knows what lies behind Billy’s well-built walls. 

“She’s not gonna get in your head,” Max says. “If that’s what you’re scared of.”

“I’m not fucking scared,” Billy growls.

“Fine,” Max says. “But she’s not going to. We’re all just gonna talk. Like…like, friends.” For the first time, Billy turns his head - he looks at her, and his eyes are red and rimmed with tears Max knows he won’t let fall. He blinks them away and lets out a sigh. “It’ll be fine,” Max says. 

Billy looks at her for a long while, and then he looks at the road again. He adjusts his hands around the wheel, loosening to a more comfortable grip. He eases the car back into drive and taps the accelerator, setting the car back into motion - back on track - even reaching the speed limit on their way to the Byers house.


	2. strong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original post/request: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186179081680/prompt-billy-lives-au-billy-is-a-pretty-vain  
> Fic requests are open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

Billy dresses in the dark now. 

Without dressings to change, without ointments to apply, with infections cleared and stitches removed and doctors visits stretched farther and farther apart, he is free to keep the curtains drawn and the lights off. He wears thicker shirts, kinds that no one can see through, and he buys them a size too big until the angry raised ridges of his scars shrink back against his skin. Even when they’ve settled, he picks dark colors that don’t show much, because he can still feel the raised lines of the scars, and if he can feel them he thinks that maybe someone else might see them. He finds himself grateful for the colder weather, because he can layer shirts and flannels and jackets without being questioned, because he can say that he’s chilled, and no one has to know that he’s covered in scars.

He’s covered the mirrors in the his bedroom. He showers with the lights off and lets the mirror fog up from the steam so that he can walk past it without having to look. When he washes his body, he uses a washcloth bunched in his hand so that he doesn’t have to feel the odd shapes carved against his skin.

“I think they’re cool,” Max once told him, her tone matter-of-fact as she helped him peel back an old dressing on his first morning free of sterile hospital walls. Billy- perhaps too harshly -told her to shut up, and that he’d finish changing the damn gauze himself. 

Max hasn’t mentioned his scars since. 

Billy has gone to one party since the start of school, and panicked when Carol dragged him into a bedroom. It was fine at first- he’d a little buzzed, and kissing Carol felt good, but his heart lodged in his throat when she peeled off his jacket and told him, “You’re really hiding out these days.” She went for his shirt next and Billy shoved her away. He bolted for the door before she could stop him, and avoided her for a week. 

Carol tried to talk to him once or twice, and then resorted to rumors that Billy met with snarls and growls and a bit of foul language. 

He’s been less social since then. He waits for Max outside the school, like he’s supposed to, and guns it home the second the passenger door slams shut. Most days, Max walks out with El in tow. They talk about El’s impending move, about their science homework; they don’t talk about Star Court, and Billy doesn’t talk to El. 

They run inside ahead of him when he pulls into the driveway. Max lingers at the door, and Billy waves her off. She ducks inside, and he waits until he hears the girls clamor into Max’s room before heading inside. 

Their parents are out. Max’s door is open a crack and Billy peeks inside to see Max and El on the floor, comic books and text books spilling out of their backpacks and onto the floor. 

Billy doesn’t take off his jacket until he’s made it to his room. He cranks up the volume on his stereo and shuts the door, submerging himself in the dark. He double checks the curtains, drawing them tightly shut, and only then does he fling off his shirt- his shield -and let himself fall onto his bed. He shuts his eyes, focusing on the throb of the base through the speakers. 

He isn’t sure how long he lays there, just breathing and listening to pulsing guitars, but his peace is broken by a knock on the door.

“Max,” Billy shouts. “What did I say?”He rises, already exasperated, and swings the door open-

to find El staring up at him. She wears an oversized flannel with rolled up sleeves and as she toys with one of the buttons Billy becomes hyper aware that his only defenses are strewn across his bedroom floor. He tries to put the door between himself and El, but he can’t hide himself without completely shutting her out.

“What?” he asks, an edge still sharp in his voice.

“Max…” El starts. “Max wanted me to ask…if you want food.”

“What?”

“Dinner,” El says. Her eyes dart away from his face for the briefest of seconds, but he knows where they are drawn. His scars are exposed, every thick white line out in the open and begging for scrutiny. 

“I’m fine,” Billy growls. “You guys do whatever you want.” 

He tries to close the door, but something holds it open. El’s small hand presses against it.

“Billy,” El says. “Are you…okay?”

“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” he snarls, but El shakes her head.

“No,” she says, and when Billy furrows his brow she says, “Mind Flayer.”

Billy has only heard that name in passing, tossed about between his sister and her friends, mostly while he twilighted- hazy from medication and pain -in a hospital bed. It freezes him.

“What about it?” he asks.

“Changed…things,” El says. “You, too?”

Billy doesn’t answer her. He follows her gaze down to the biggest scar, a huge white spot just below his sternum. He touches it absently and feels a chill run through him. When he blinks, he sees that thing- that Mind Flyer -flash against his eyelids, and the next thing he knows El’s hand is around his wrist pulling his hand down. 

“Not weak,” she says. 

“What?” Billy asks.

“You fought,” El goes on. “Makes you strong.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Billy lies, and El lets him. She shoves her hands in the pockets of her jeans and shrugs her shoulders all the way up to her ears.

“We’re…going for dinner. We’ll be back.” And she turns away, and Billy sees Max waiting for her down the hall. El walks out the front door, but Max lingers. She looks to Billy, looks to his bare chest, and Billy drops his gaze to that scar. Max lingers until he looks back up, and then she gives a wave before following El. Billy waits until he hears the front door, and when he retreats back into his room, he pulls the curtain open to watch them walk away.


	3. you got me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original post/request: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186320770850/billy-survives-the-mindflayer-but-gets-a-tbi-that  
> Fic requests open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

The first thing Billy becomes aware of as he wakes is the throbbing ache inside his skull. It grips him, squeezing tight around his right temple and stabbing needles behind his eye. He can hear voices, though no words drift through the fog of his drug-addled brain. He can feel the IV tugging at the crook of his arm, can feel the cool trickle of medication dripping into his veins. Billy tries to open his eyes, but a bright light harsh against white walls assaults them and he hisses, throwing his untethered arm across his face to shield himself. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” he hears, and then there are hands on him- a light and gentle touch on his arm, on his shoulder. He feels a shadow move over him and he peeks between his fingers to see a tangle of red hair hovering above him. “Are you okay?” Max asks. 

Billy swallows thickly against a wave of nausea and utters a single, rasping word: “Hurts.”

He hears something- footsteps, he thinks -but he is out cold before he finds out who they belong to. When he wakes again, the room is dark. He shifts in bed, and again hears a soft, “Hey, hey, hey,” from someone sitting beside him. The voice is deeper this time, and the hand on his shoulder is strong and firm. Billy turns his head, groaning as the movement sends a ripple of pain down the back of his skull and all the way down his neck. 

“Th’fuck,” he murmurs. “Harrington?” 

“You remember,” Steve says. “I’m touched.”

“Fuck off.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, it looks like Billy Hargrove’s still in there.”

Billy wants to tell him to fuck off again, but the words evaporate on his tongue. He tries anyway and his voice cracks in a way that would embarrass him if he weren’t so focused on the unrelenting ache pulsing in his head. His breath hitches, and he feels Steve tense as he rises. 

“Woah, okay,” Steve says. “It’s okay. Should I call a nurse? You need something?”

Billy wants to tell Steve to fuck off again, wants to say anything to get him out of the room. He tries to push himself up to prove that he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, but pain spreads like a wildfire across his chest and the room begins to tilt. He finds himself suddenly breathless, unable to fight against the heat in his throat. Billy swears and falls back against the limp pillows, frustrated and spent. Steve says something, but Billy can’t make out the words. He squeezes his eyes shut, and when he opens them again Steve is holding a small plastic cup out to him. Billy stares at it, then closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“No?” he hears Steve ask. Billy lets the question linger. In time, he hears Steve set the little cup down and lean back in his chair. He thinks he hears Steve say something else, but has faded too far into sleep to make sense of it.

The third time Billy wakes it is to harsh light and a loud voice. He can’t keep is eyes open; the sharp overhead bulbs burn his eyes and the sting feels like it reaches all the way into his brain. He can feel a shadow passing over him- back and forth and back and forth. This person is angry. This person keeps pointing at Billy. This person is his father. 

Billy can’t make out a word that Neil is saying. He tries, but between the drugs and the throbbing in his head he can’t piece together all the furious sounds spilling from his father’s mouth. Billy squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he can, even though the force of it makes him want to puke, because he thinks that he can force himself to sleep again - he wants to escape, somehow. To get away. To find safety in the dark. 

—

The doctors say he has a brain injury.

No one tells this to Billy directly, but he pieces it together from conversations that happen when people think that he is asleep. The migraines are a result of that, and he is prescribed painkillers that his father withholds when Billy is finally allowed to go home. He can man the fuck up as far as Neil is concerned, though Max sees the agony this puts her brother in. 

His speech, even weeks later, is limited to short phrases often including some type of expletive. He struggles to get words out, which Neil cannot stand. Max hears them early in the morning and late at night and every hour in between. Neil will ask questions and demand answers, and Billy will take too long stringing words together, and Neil will hit him like he always does. Billy retreats to his bedroom, locks the door, sleeps in the dark until Neil accuses him of being lazy and the cycle starts all over again. 

He feels trapped. He is not allowed to drive in his condition, and although doctor’s orders aren’t enough to stop Billy Hargrove, his car is far from fixed. Neil won’t spend the money to repair it, and Billy is too sick to earn a paycheck. 

Max gets Billy to go on walks whenever she can. They walk to the arcade, and into the woods to Hopper’s cabin. Hopper has the shed to Billy- “It’s not much, but it’s an escape, if you need one,” he tells him, and more than once he’s found the kid asleep in a nest of old bedding. 

Steve, too, has pitched in to help. He drives Max and Billy home when Billy is too tired to walk. He takes Max to all the places Billy is usually in charge of taking her, like school and the arcade and the video store to rent something she thinks Billy might like (he hasn’t been able to make it through a full movie yet, all the colors and loud noises irritating him an hour in, but a movie night feels normal, and Billy will take whatever scraps of normal he can get). 

Max’s friends warm up to him slowly. 

It is Will who offers the first olive branch. He answers the door when Billy and Steve are dropping Max off for a game of D&D. He asks Billy if he wants to come inside, and Billy- with Steve and Max’s encouragement -accepts. He sits off to the side, using a pair of Jonathan’s headphones to drown out the noise in the room. Before he leaves, Will assures him that things will get better, and while Billy doesn’t understand what he means, he finds the kindness endearing. He grunts in response, unsure of how to hold such softness properly, but each time he finds himself thrown amongst his sister’s friends, it is Will who checks in with him- who checks in _on_ him.

Eleven spends more and more time at the Mayfield-Hargrove house. She watches Neil closely, and once Billy has even put himself between Eleven and his father when Neil caught on to her scrutiny. Neil’s rage redirected easily to his son, but his rant was cut short when the floor seemed to suddenly drop beneath him. He fell, swearing and angry, and couldn’t pull himself back up. Max had pulled Billy out of the room and out the front door, and when El joined them, there was a small trickle of blood coming from her nose.

They went back to Mike’s that night, and Billy made sure to avoid Mrs. Wheeler as Max led him to the backyard where Steve and Jonathan and Nancy were already engaged in conversation. They let him sit quietly among them, not asking questions about the bruises, not pressuring him to speak. Steve asks once if Billy is okay, and Billy merely grunts in response. Steve does not press, but does pass a bottle of water to Billy when he notices him pinching at the bridge of his nose- a warning, a way to ward off the pain. 

Steve drives him home that night- him, and Max, and El. The girls keep Max’s bedroom door open, and sleep in a nest of blankets on the floor so that they can see into Billy’s room- not to spy on him, but to protect him.

Billy keeps his door open, too, and when he hears his father’s footsteps coming down the hall, he feels relief instead of dread as his door swings close of its own- or, more accurately - Eleven’s accord, and Neil is shut out - unable to touch him, unable to hurt him. 


	4. the kids aren't alright.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original request/prompt: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186460287115/hopper-and-billy-livedont-get-sent-to-russia  
> Fic requests open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note: this chapter is written from the perspective of El and Max, but the content is centered around Billy, which is why I chose to include it in this collection.

The Hargrove-Mayfield household has become a second home to El- or, rather, the streets around it have, because when the parents are home the kids tend to disappear. Max will ask El if she wants to go skateboarding, or Billy will drop them off at the arcade or a local diner before vanishing for hours- sometimes days -at a time. 

Sometimes, there is shouting before the exodus. The men of the house raise their voices. Max shuts the door, sometimes pulls El out the window. 

“It’s better if we’re not here,” she says. El hesitates at the window sill, frozen by the yelling and the way the walls shake. Max grabs her wrist and pulls her out and they walk around the block one, two, three times before they see Billy emerge from the house. Max tells El to wait and she runs to her brother. El cannot hear what they’re saying, but she sees Max reach for Billy’s hand and Billy roughly pull it away. She sees the way Billy keeps his head down, his hair over his face, and how he angles his chin away from Max when she tries to get a look at him. 

“Do you want a ride or not?” El hears Billy say as she wanders timidly closer, trying to understand them. Max looks to her, and she looks somewhere between annoyed and concerned. 

“Yeah,” she says. “We do.” 

El sits in the back seat, Max beside her brother. The music is too loud for talking. El doesn’t like it, but the only time either Max or Billy reach for the knob it is to turn the volume up. Billy drives with the windows down and the wind roaring. Any question asked would be lost under the din. Still, El watches Billy- his white knuckles on the wheel, the way his fingers shake and the he tries to hide it by tapping a drum beat on the dashboard. She closes her eyes. Breathes. Tries to see something more, to dive into his head the way she did when the Mind Flayer tried to claim it, but all she garners are flashes of fists and the taste of blood in her mouth- no pictures, no void, no hallmarks of the power she is accustomed to -before the car shudders to a stop. Her eyes pop open and meet Billy’s in the rearview mirror. 

They’ve arrived at Hopper’s, and El can see her dad standing the open doorway. Max gets out of the car and El moves to follow, but is stopped when Billy growls, “I don’t need you in my head anymore.” He hasn’t turned around. He is still watching her through the mirror. “Got it?” 

“I…” El starts, and she drops her gaze for the briefest moment before meeting his eyes again. “I can help.” 

“No,” Billy says. He almost laughs it. “You can’t.” 

She tries to speak again, but Max has opened her door. Billy revs the engine. El lingers for a moment before leaving the car, and Billy speeds off the second the door is closed behind her. They eat a quiet dinner with Hopper, watch some of his old Westerns (or, rather, Hopper watches the movies while Max and El swap articles from magazines Max has helped El collect. It isn’t until that night, when they are lying side-by-side in El’s dark bedroom, that El dares to ask, “What happened today?”

“What do you mean?” Max says, though her tone suggests she already knows.

“With…Billy.”

“Oh,” Max says, her assumptions proven right. “Neil- his dad? He’s a Grade-A asshole.”

“Asshole?” El asks. “Like…Lucas? And Mike?”

“No,” Max says, shaking her head. “No, no. Not that kind of asshole. They’re, like, Tier 1. They do shitty boyfriend stuff, like forget your anniversary or point out your zits or make up stupid lies about stupid shit. That’s amateur hour. Neil is, like…You know how Billy gets really loud sometimes? Like, not Mind-Flayer kind of aggressive, but how he hits the steering wheel really hard when he’s mad and stuff?”

“Yes,” El says, because she watched this happen just last week on a similar day. Max had pulled her out of the house and taught her how to do kick flips on her board until Billy finally came outside to drive them to Mike’s. She had seen a bruise on his wrist then, but she wasn’t supposed to- she knew because he pulled his sleeve down when he caught her looking.

“Neil’s like that,” Max says. “But worse. And he throws it all at Billy.”

“He…hurts him?”

Max hesitates, then says, “Sometimes.”

“Does he…hurt you?”

“No,” Max says. “I mean, once he tried. He was drunk. He took a swing. My mom screamed.” She is quiet for a moment, the she says, “Billy stopped him.” Her voice quiets down, almost to a whisper, almost so soft that El has to strain to hear, when she says, “He got it real bad that night. Billy, I mean. He was so mad after. He didn’t talk to me for two weeks. But Neil’s never tried anything with me again. It’s…it’s always Billy.”

Max’s words linger in the following silence. El watches her friend, sees the glistening in her eyes. She reaches out and grabs Max’s hand, and Max’s squeezes El’s hard. 

“You can’t tell Billy I told you,” she says. “He’ll kill me.”

“He…” El starts, and then she chews at her lower lip. “You need help,” she says eventually. “You and Billy. You need help.” 

“You know, I’ve kind of thought about that,” Max says. “Like, you coming in all superpowered and giving Neil a taste of his own medicine. But…” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought that up.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” El says. It’s true that her powers vanished after the Mind Flayer much like the Hargrove-Mayfields vanish from their home in the wake of Neil’s wrath, but Hopper has given her sound advice- to be patient, to breathe, to enjoy her time as a normal kid. To come to him if she needs to. “There’s other ways I can help.”

“How?” Max asks, genuinely curious. 

El is thinking about Hopper. El is thinking about the badge he pins to his uniform shirt every morning. She doesn’t want to say anything to Max just yet, just in case her dad says no- he’s not the biggest fan of Billy or his temper, and he has not hidden this each time Billy drops the girls off or picks them up, but she thinks he might an exception for special circumstances. “We can figure something out.” 

It is a week and a few more Hargrove feuds later when El presents her evidence to Hopper. Max’s confession, a couple of Polaroids of Billy’s bruises that Max somehow convinced him to take (”He really didn’t want to,” she says. “He called me a lot of colorful names, but I got them.”). The more El told him, the more Hopper seemed to boil- rage is the only word El can think to describe his eyes. 

He showed up at the Hargrove-Mayfield house the next day with a warrant- the girls were at Hopper’s house, safely tucked away. Neil was arrested on suspicion of child abuse and endangerment. Billy was questioned, and later Max was, too. Susan, being Neil’s wife, was not legally obligated to incriminate her husband, but she hand-delivered a written statement to the Hawkins Police the very next morning. 

Hopper had offered Billy a safe haven. “You don’t have to,” he said, “but my door is open.”

The night of his father’s arrest, after his interview with the police, Billy and his Camaro disappeared. He drove in circles around Hawkins, and then beyond. He drove until he ran out of gas, refilled his tank, then drove some more. He kept the windows down and the radio up like he always did, but the feeling in his chest was different. His bruises were yellow instead of black and blue. He replayed the day in his head, over and over again. Chief Jim Hopper bursting through his front door, his father accusing Billy of pulling some shit only to have the handcuffs slapped around his own wrists. Sitting down with the cops, telling them yes when he told them his father hit him, shoved him, kicked him. 

The next morning, at the same time that Susan Mayfield arrived at the police station to turn in her statement, Billy found himself at Chief Hopper’s front door. El opened it, and on instinct she threw her arms around Billy’s middle. 

He stiffened in her grip, unsure of what to do, but then his hands settled on her back. He let her hug him. He let her guide him into the house and fix him a towering plate of Eggo waffles. When Hopper arrived home that night, he was only slightly surprised to find Billy Hargrove poking through his record collection, selecting oldies to spin while El watched on. 

Neil serves a month of jail time, and while he ticks off the days in his cell, Hopper sets Billy and the Mayfields up with a lawyer who draws up restraining orders against him. Billy stays with Susan and Max for a time, but with Max sleeping at El’s nearly every other night and Susan’s sister crowding the space Neil left behind and the fear of Neil somehow breaking down the door at any moment, he ends up sleeping in his car.

When Hopper finds Billy curled up in the back seat of his Camaro on the corner of Main Street and Maple Avenue, he tucks a spare key and a looseleaf note beneath the door handle. Use it. Knock before you come in. The couch is yours.

Billy waits three days before acting on the offer. Max is already there when he arrives. El’s bedroom door is open a crack and Billy can hear the girls giggling about something. Hopper is making dinner and hardly looks up when Billy comes in.

“You didn’t knock,” he says.

“Sorry,” Billy grunts. 

“Hungry?” Hopper asks. And that, as they say, was that. Billy eats dinner with them, and he watches old movies- or, rather, he and Hopper watch them while the girls tinker with a science fair project on the floor. That night, El and Max help Billy turn the couch into a bed with spare sheets and blankets. As he comes out of the bathroom from brushing his teeth, he finds El standing there. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

“I’m fine,” Billy says. “I, uh…guess I owe you an apology.”

“Apology?” El asks.

“I said you couldn’t help,” he says. “Looks like I was wrong.”

“So…you’re okay?” El asks again.

“Yeah, kid,” Billy says. “But, hey, can you do me a favor?”

“Okay.”

“Just…stay out of my fucking head, okay?” He laughs to prove he’s joking, and nudges El with his arm as he walks past her and toward the couch. Encouraged by his spirits, but the lightness that El didn’t know could exist inside him, El laughs, too.


	5. i know where you've been.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt/request: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186532191005/anon-of-the-tbi-prompt-and-hopper-adopt-billy  
> Fic requests open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is linked to/a continuation of "chapter three: you got me.".

Billy is on the floor. 

Max sees it happen- sees his father raise his fists and seem to grow three feet taller in the process, sees Billy shudder as he fights to stand his ground, sees him tremble and collapse like a tree in a storm. Neil looms over him, covers his shivering shadow until Max can’t see him anymore. He delivers one harsh kick to Billy’s side and Billy groans. Max can see him curled up in a ball as his father stalks away. 

She shrinks back into her room, shutting the door and praying that her step-father doesn’t notice her. She wishes to invisible, and only lets out her breath when her wish seems to be granted. She hears Neil’s footsteps stomp down the hall. She hears the front door open and shut. She hears a car engine, and then she hears a soft whimper break the following silence.

Her mother is out- she had lunch planned with her girlfriends, and though she’d asked Max if she’d like to go, Max knew she couldn’t leave Billy. He has only been home from the hospital for a week and has been hit more times than Max can count on her hands. 

It always starts small, like when Billy slept too late on first morning home or when he turns out lights when he comes in rooms because their harsh glare hurts his eyes. It starts small and then grows, like a snowball rolled down hill. It builds and builds and then it crashes with screaming and flying fists. She thought- or maybe she just hoped -that Neil would be kinder as his son heals, but it seems that Billy’s injuries- _weaknesses_ in Neil’s eyes -only anger him more. The migraines are nuisances. When Billy throws up, Neil berates him like a child. He withholds medicine because he thinks that Billy should handle pain “like a man”, whatever that means. (He even keeps Billy’s antibiotics from him, which Max has seen her mother slip to him when Neil isn’t looking. The Mayfields take over his care, guided by the doctor’s instructions hidden in Susan’s purse). 

But now, Susan is not home, and Neil has stormed off, and Billy is on the floor. 

Max sneaks out of her room, rip-toeing until she is certain they are alone. She listens for the rolling tires of her step-father’s old Ford, but they don’t come, and in their absence she hurries the rest of the way to Billy’s room. 

“Billy?” she says, but he doesn’t answer her. His head is turned down and his hair hides his face. His arms are wrapped protectively around his middle and sweat soaks through his shirt. On closer inspection, Max sees the fabric over his chest darkening in shades of red. “Billy?! Hey. Hey, come on. Billy, talk to me.”

She touches his shoulder, timidly at first, and then she grabs it and shakes him as gently as she can. She thinks she hears him say a four letter word, but isn’t quite sure. 

“Billy?” she says again. “Where does it hurt?” 

When he still doesn’t answer, Max pulls herself to her feet. She runs back to her room and grabs the walkie talkie that she never lets stray too fair. She pulls up the antenna and presses down the button and says, “Does anyone copy? This is Max, does anyone copy? I…I need help. Just…code red, okay? Code red. I need help.” 

She moves through she house with the walkie in one hand. She goes into the bathroom and pulls the first aid kit from underneath the sink. She repeats, “Code red. Come on. Does anybody copy? Answer me. This is Max. I have a code red.” over and over again as she fills a bowl with water and squeezes hand soap into it. “This is Max,” she says once more. “Someone please copy.” 

She hears a noise from Billy’s room- something like a cough, or a hiccup, and she she pokes her head into the hall she can see Billy shaking in a way that she can only describe as violent. She abandons her supplies and hurries to him, leaving the radio on the lip of the sink. 

“Billy?” she says. He is trying to push himself onto hands and knees, and when Max thinks he is going to be sick she makes a move for the waste bin by his bed, but Billy grabs her wrist. “What?” she asks. “What is it?” 

He doesn’t say anything, but he uses his hold on her to start to pull himself up. 

“Woah, what the shit? Billy, stop. Stay down.” Even as she speaks, she knows the point is moot. He won’t listen, and her only choice is to help him to his feet and to let him lean on her as they make their way slowly into the bathroom. He collapses beside the toilet the moment they get there, and Max barely gets the lid open in time for him to start heaving. With no other way to help him, Max kneels beside him, rubbing circles into his back the way her mother did for when she had the stomach flu last spring. “Okay,” she says. “It’s okay.” 

In the flurry of motion, she hardly noticed the crackle of static from the walkie on the sink.

“Max, this is Dustin. I’m with Steve. We copy. We’re on our way.”

She doesn’t think that Billy hears this, and this is a small relief in itself. Billy is still Billy. He is still proud. He still doesn’t want to be helped, or to have all of his dorky little sister’s dorky little friends gawk at him in his misery. She keeps her attention on him so that he won’t know. When she rises, it is to fill a Dixie cup with water. She hands it to him and he swishes it around in his mouth and spits. He reaches to flush the toilet, but his hand shakes, and Max guides it back down as she hits the lever for him. 

Max lets silence linger between them for a few steady beats before she dives into the questions the doctors told the family to ask. “Do you know your name?” 

Billy doesn’t answer. He stays there with one arm hugging the bowl, breathing heavily. When he lets Max guide him away and leans his back against the bathtub, his eyes look glossy and red. Max feels her heart in her throat and she does her best to swallow it back down. The stain on his shirt is growing- a deep crimson blotch coming from wounds still held together by surgical thread. 

“Let me look,” Max says, pointing to his chest. Billy looks down and frowns at the stain. She waits for him to take off his shirt, and when he doesn’t, Max reaches for the hem. Billy swats her away. “Stop it,” Max says. “I need to look.”

She doesn’t hear the knock at the front door, or the subsequent squeak of the hinges at is eased open. She only turns around when she hears a clamor of footsteps coming down the hall, stiffening and rising, moving herself protectively in front of Billy and only relaxing when she sees Eleven in the doorway. 

Mike is in tow, and behind him comes Will and Lucas and, finally, Dustin and Steve. 

“We heard you,” El says. 

“What’s going on?” asks Lucas. Max looks down at her feet, and then she moves aside so that they can all see Billy. He is looking at them, but doesn’t seem to fully see them. 

“His…his dad,” Max says. “I don’t know what happened, but…his dad really pounded on him and now he won’t say anything. I…I don’t know what to do. I think he made it worse.”

The great _it_ is the brain injury that no one has formally told Billy he has. Max thinks he knows- thinks he’s pieced it together from all the conversations about him that happen right in front him, his name batted about as if he is not right there. 

“Okay,” Steve says, pushing ahead of the kids and stepping into the room. Billy curls away from his shadow, seems like he’s trying to escape. Steve looks to Max, who gives a slight nod, and then he kneels down in front of Billy. “Hey,” he says, getting Billy’s eyes to zero in on him. “It’s okay, alright? We’re here to help. No one is going to hurt you.” 

Billy looks from Steve to the rest of the party, then back to Steve again. Max comes to his other side, once again motioning toward the hem of his shirt.

“Billy,” she says. “You’re hurt. We just want to see how bad.”

“No one’s here to hurt you,” Steve repeats. He turns to the boys, who are crammed in the doorway. “Hey, don’t crowd him. Make yourselves useful.”

They jolt into motion. Lucas grabs the first aid kid, and Will takes the bowl of water that Max had left half-filled in the bowl of the sink. Dustin and Mike hurry to Billy’s room in search of a fresh shirt. Max tells El where to find her mother’s purse, the one with the doctor’s orders and the prescription pain medication that Neil won’t let Billy have. She fetches them as Max and Steve get Billy to take off his shirt and carefully remove the blood-soaked gauze wrapped tight around his chest. 

“He didn’t rip any stitches,” Steve says. “At least, I don’t think.”

“He’s lucky,” Max says. “That shithead got him good.” Then, she focuses her attention back on Billy. “I’m going to clean it, okay? I know words aren’t your strong suit right now-” at this, Billy grunts, but he proves Max’s point by saying nothing, “-but just let me know if I’m hurting you.” 

Billy lets them clean him up, hissing only once when the rubbing alcohol first touches his skin. He lets them put new gauze on the wound. He hesitates when El offers him pills, but dry-swallows them before Max can finish filling a cup with water. His eyes squint against the light, and when he starts to try to escape it, Max asks Will to shut off the lights. He starts in the bathroom, then moves down the hall and all the way into Billy’s room. Steve hauls Billy to his feet and helps him down the hall and back into bed. 

“Be careful,” Max says, following a step behind them. “His head hurts.”

“I think his everything hurts,” Lucas says, referencing the blossoming bruises they all saw on Billy’s bare stomach. Max glares at him, and he holds up his hands. “I meant that for real. I feel bad for the guy.” 

“He doesn’t need you to feel bad for him,” Max snaps. “He just needs help.” 

“That’s what we came for,” Dustin assures here.

“Yeah,” Mike agrees.

“We’re here to help,” Will says. 

“I think,” El says, and everyone turns to face her, “I can help him rest. He…he needs to.”

“Okay,” Max says. “Have at it.” 

Steve deposits Billy on his bed, and El hovers behind him, Max just a few feet behind her and the rest of the party gathered in the doorway. As Billy tries to get himself comfortable, El approaches him. She points to his head.

“Can I?” she asks, and Billy’s brows furrow. He doesn’t seem to understand, but he doesn’t shy away when El takes a seat on the edge of his head. “I…I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

She reaches for him, and Billy winces slightly as her fingertips graze his temple. The others watch as El closes her eyes and Billy does, too. They watch as he lowers his head against the pillow and his eyes flutter shut. El lingers a few moments longer before she lets go of him, and when she turns back to the group Max asks, “What did you do?”

“I…showed him happy memories,” El explains. “So that he can dream about them.” 

Max thanks her with a hug that lasts longer than usual, and then she offers the group some food for their trouble. They pour bags of chips into plastic bowls in the kitchen and park themselves on the couch, all of them resigned to taking watch for as long as it took, to keep their friends safe. 


	6. empty your sadness.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original request/prompt: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/186668737295/could-you-do-another-hopper-adopts-billy-prompt  
> Fic requests open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is linked to/a continuation of "chapter four: the kids aren't alright.".

Jim Hopper can handle a lot of things.

He can handle pulling over friends and locking up neighbors for disorderly conduct. He can deal with lost children tugging on his uniform shirts or grabbing for a sleeve of frozen Eggo waffles in the woods; he can deal with his adopted daughter dating a boy he semi-approves and he can deal with Joyce reminding him, time and time again, that the boy is harmless and he should let the kids be. And if Jim Hopper can deal with daughters and girlfriends and duties and could-be step-sons with their relationship problems and puberty, certainly he can handle the nightmares of a seventeen-year-old boy. This is what Jim tells himself when he finds Billy Hargrove, breath ragged and body writhing, on his couch. 

There is a note on the fridge that tells Jim he is alone: El is at the Byers house for a movie night with Will and Max. There is a message on the answering machine from Joyce, confirming the note tacked down with a Radio Shack magnet. _Hi, Hop. El is here. I know she left a note, but I just wanted you to know she’ll probably be spending the night. We’ll all see you tomorrow._ There was a pause, and then a small, _Love you_ that almost got trapped under static. Jim listens, and he tries to let Billy’s labored breathing fade into the background, but when the machine shut off and the silence returned he heard the tiniest of whines escape the kid’s lips. Jim sighs. He thinks about the beer he’d been longing for, untouched and waiting in the fridge, and then he abandons it. 

“Billy?” he says, stepping back into the living room. In the three minutes that Jim had spent checking his messages, Billy has managed to kick his blankets to the floor. There is a thick sheen of sweat covering his face and soaking through his white shirt. His hair is plastered to his forehead and his mouth moves around words that come out as soft and pained whimpers. He flinches at the sound of his name, but he doesn’t wake up. 

“Hey, kid,” Jim says, He leans over the back of the couch and grabs Billy’s shoulder. Billy jerks away from him, nearly falling off the edge of the couch, but Jim holds onto him. “Hey, wake up,” Jim says. 

He shakes Billy, but this only agitates the kid more. He throws out an arm and, in his escape, this time he does fall. He clamors to the floor, shocked awake by the impact, heart in his throat as he scrambles to his feet. 

His eyes are unfocused and watery, and he is clearly on the defense. His shoulders are squared, muscles flexed, and Jim would even say he looked ready for a fight if he didn’t appear so damn pathetic. 

“Billy?” Jim asks cautiously, and Billy backs away from him. He isn’t looking where he’s going and his legs buckle when they strike the coffee table. He staggers, but catches himself, and not once do his eyes leave Jim. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows and Jim thinks he sees the kid’s hands shaking as clenches and unclenches his fists. “Hey, hey, hey,” Jim says. He takes a cautious step forward and Billy ducks away from him, arms drawn up defensively.

“Hey,” Jim says. “You’re okay. You were having a bad dream.” He pauses to gauge Billy’s reaction, and the only read he can get is _confused_. Billy stares at him, his eyes darting between Jim’s hands and his face. He is listening, but Jim’s words don’t seem to be sinking deep enough. His breath is still ragged and labored. “Do you know where you are?” Jim asks him, and Billy finally dares to look around the room. When he looks back to Jim, something has changed. There is more clarity- clarity and, Jim thinks, anger. “Billy,” Jim says. 

Billy says nothing. He runs a hand through his hair and drops his gaze to the floor. He is working something out, though Jim doesn’t know exactly what. 

It has been three weeks since Neil Hargrove’s arrest, and Jim doesn’t think the kid has slept a wink- not really, not restfully, not in the way that he needs. There are deep circles like bruises stamped in purple under his eyes. His real bruises, the ones that are documented- in much worse condition -by Polaroids taking for evidence, are turning yellow and green at the edges. Some of them have even faded completely, and in their wake Jim can see the faint scars a savage man left on his son’s body. The sight of them makes his blood boil. 

But the kid has been asked enough questions- _When did this start?_ (“It’s always happened,” Billy had mumbled.) _Did you ever tell anyone?_ (”No,” Billy had said.) _Why not?_ (”No one was going to help,” Billy had answered. “He made sure of it.”). He’s had doctors poke and prod at him, x-rays to show the fault-lines where his father once broke his bones then told the ER doctors that Billy had had a bad accident at football practice. He’s recounted stories of shoulders popping out of place and tinnitus from his head once rebounding off the wall like a kid’s rubber ball. No wonder he’s having nightmares. Jim thinks he would, too. 

“Billy,” Jim says again. Billy’s chin jerks up. He looks at Jim, and there is a tear slipping down his red cheek. Jim thinks about going towards him, but when he sees Billy tense at his first step he stops himself. “Do you want me to stay, or leave you alone?” Jim asks him. Billy looks even more confused than before, and Jim realizes he’s never been offered a choice. “I’m having a drink. You can come in the kitchen or stay here. Your move.” 

Jim leaves him, and he goes for that coveted beer. He’s cracking open the tab and sitting at the table when Billy emerges in the doorway, looking warily into the room. Jim sips his beer and motions toward the chair across from him. Billy hesitates, then steps a bare foot onto the tile. He pads into the room and drops into the seat. Jim swallows, then asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?” Billy asks, trying to sound menacing or angry or intimidating but coming off as merely exhausted. 

“The dream,” Jim says. He keeps his tone nonchalant. He can hear Joyce in his head, her voice on a broken-record loop. _Don’t push him. He’s been through enough. He doesn’t need you hounding him. He needs you to be there. He needs you._

“No,” Billy says eventually. Jim hums a response. He finishes his beer in silence, Billy sitting quietly across from him and digging at the grooves in the wood table with a fingernail. He tenses when Jim rises, shoulders up and spine and rigid and ready to strike. It occurs to Jim that Billy has lived his whole live on the defense, never knowing when the next hit was going to come but always needing to be ready to take it. He is more mindful of his movements as he tosses his beer can and retrieves a second. He also grabs one of El’s Cokes for Billy, and he sets it gently in front of the kid before returning to his seat. Billy stays coiled until Jim is sipping at his PBR, and then he reaches for the soda can and pops the tab open. Silence settles again, and Jim lets it. He watches the kid as he slowly starts to unwind. 

“Well,” Jim says when his second beer is gone. “I’m turning in. Unless you want me to stick around?” Billy seems to consider this, and then he shakes his head. 

“No,” he says. 

“Okay then,” Jim says. “You going back to sleep?”

“Maybe,” Billy says, and Jim knows that this means no. He rises, and he throws out his second empty can. Billy is still nursing his Coke. He draws shapes and swirls in the condensation on the can. 

“Hey,” Jim says, and Billy turns to look at him. “You’re gonna be okay, kid.” 

Billy hums a small response that could be _sure_ in a sarcastic or non-sarcastic nature. Jim taps the wall and disappears into this bedroom. He leaves his door open a crack, and he shuts the window in his bedroom so that the wind won’t drown out the sound of any more of Billy’s nightmares.

Jim isn’t sure when he drifts off, but soon enough morning comes and with it drifts in the sweet smell of maple syrup and the clinking of silverware and glasses. He emerges to find El and Max shuffling about the kitchen. They are talking to one another in whispers, and when they see Jim, they shush him with fingers to their lips before he has a chance to utter a word. Max points to the couch, where Billy is curled up in a bundle of wrinkled blankets, sleeping soundly. 


	7. mama, i'm comin' home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Original prompt/request: https://biillyhargroves.tumblr.com/post/187019738905/if-youre-still-taking-requests-could-we-see  
> Fic requests open at biillyhargroves.tumblr.com.

First, there were phone calls. They were short and tearful and often left Billy with more questions than answered. He would drop the phone back in its cradle and run - run before his father saw him crying, run until his legs grew too tired to carry him, run until his cheeks were red from heat and sweat instead of heartache. 

Next, there came letters. Billy found the first by accident. The thin paper had been torn in half and tossed in the trash, and Billy fished it out and shoved it in his pocket. He carried it to school and then to the beach, where he climbed up the highest rock on the jetty and fit the two crumpled pieces together. It didn’t say much, but he trailed his finger along the familiar loops of her letters and he cried. He kept the letter at the bottom of his backpack and tried to intercept the mail each day when he came home from school. 

When the letters stopped, there came cards. Colorful birthday cards and handmade Christmas greetings, always with a different return address. They come twice a year, and they are always the same; a few words of the Hallmark poems are underlined in black ink, the card is dated (1978, 1970, 1980…) and is signed _With love, Mom_ with a hand-drawn heart. Billy has stopped opening them. His father hands them to him without a hard, and Billy shoves them, unopened, in a nightstand drawer. Blue envelope on top of green envelope on top of red envelope and so on, stacked on top of the letter he taped back together and the cards he’d read in more hopeful years. 

Starcourt changed things. 

The girl, his sister’s friend, _El_ , she changed things. She pulled out memories that Billy had stuffed in jars, dredged up a past buried in sand, and Billy can’t get them out of his head. 

“El saw her, didn’t she?” Max had asked him. “She brought you back.”

She brings El to visit him in the hospital, because when she asked Billy if he wanted to see her again Billy didn’t say no. The girls sit with him. They talk about California. They talk about the beach. They talk about his mother. When the conversation turns to her, to the pretty woman in her white dress, Billy gets quiet. When El leaves, he tells Max, “I’ve been thinking.”

“About what?” she asks. 

“Going back,” he says. “Going home.”

He tells Max where he stashes his money. There are uncashed paychecks and some crumpled twenties in a shoebox under his bed. Max counts it all up, and while Billy is still under the careful watch of a nurse he unkindly (but deservingly) calls Ratched, she scrounges up whatever cash she can. She digs under couch cushions and breaks open her piggy bank. She mows lawns with Lucas. She talks Steve into checking in on Billy’s car at the mechanic, on making sure it gets fixed. 

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she says. “It just has to run.” 

When Billy is sent home, she tucks an envelope of scavenged money into his jacket pocket. They count it together and, feeling guilty or nervous or something in between, he tries to give it back. 

“Half is yours anyway,” Max says. 

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Billy asks her. He speaks more quietly now, and Max doesn’t know if it’s because of the physical wounds or the deeper ones in his head. 

“Can’t. School. The whole _being a minor_ thing.” Max shrugs. They are sitting on Billy’s bed, and it is late. Their parents are asleep. They speak in whispers so as not to disturb the semi-peaceful silence of the house. “But save a spot for me out there. You know, just in case Hawkins gets too boring.”

“Right,” Billy says. “Listen, if he-”

“I’ve got El on speed dial,” Max says. “Her dad’s chief of police. I’m covered.”

Billy smiles softly, almost sadly, and he says, “Okay.” 

He has a bag packed. Steve has parked the Camaro, which Neil had planned to junk, around the corner. Billy sighs and he stands. Wordlessly, he swings his back over his shoulder, and Max jumps up. 

“Hold on,” she tells him, and she slips out of his room. He leans toward the doorway and watches her shadow flit about in her own bedroom. She returns with a clunky walkie-talkie, the kind that she and her friends all carry around. She shoves it into his hands. “Just in case,” she says. 

“The signal,” Billy points out, and Max waves off his concern.

“I have smart friends,” she says. “It’ll work.”

Billy laughs at this, a short sort of huff that could be mistake for a cough, and he drops the radio into his bag. Max pushes his window open and Billy throws the bag outside first. Then, with some difficulty, he climbs out. 

“Bye, shitbird,” he says when he looks up to find Max leaning out the window.

“Get out of here, fuckface,” she tells him. She shuts the window, and Billy sneaks away.

The drive is long and lonely. Billy plays a mixtape he found shoved into a pocket of his backpack, one that Max had made for him when he was in the hospital. He plays it over and over until he can’t stand the songs anymore, then he switches the radio. As he makes his way across the Californian border, he opts for silence. 

It takes him time to find her. Home doesn’t look like home, and Billy wanders once-familiar streets reading street signs and store awnings like a foreigner. Some of his old haunts are the same: the surf shop has a new owner, but the same dilapidated storefront; the corner pizzeria is run by the same old Italian man who greets Billy with an abundance of enthusiasm and won’t let him leave without eating something. He asks everyone he recognizes if they’ve seen her, and they all give him the same sad look. He hates them for it. He hates the sympathy that reads like pity and how it follows him around town, he hates how word starts to spread and people start to greet him with sad eyes and heavy hearts.

When he grows tired of hearing the same answers again and again and again, Billy goes to the beach. He sits in the sand and he watches the waves, and as the sun goes down he closes his eyes and breathes in the smell of the salty air. 

It is dark when a voice pulls him from his thoughts.

“I thought I’d find you here.”

His heart stalls. His breath does, too. Billy opens his eyes and creases his brow. When he bites his lip it tastes like saltwater. Slowly, he turns his head. 

She is older now, and she wears jeans and an embroidered blouse that billows in the wind. Her hair is still long, though it has gone gray at her temples, and the fine lines of her face have deepened. When she smiles, though, she looks the same. She looks like his mother.

Billy stars at her, mouth-open, too stunned to speak. Her eyes mist when they catch his and she holds a hand to her mouth. 

“Billy,” she says, and the sound of his name in her voice - the same voice that used to cheer him on and call him home and scare the monsters out of his dreams - shocks him into motion. He rises to his feet and squares his shoulders to face her. 

“How-” he starts, and then he clears his throat. “Uh, how did you-”

“Small town,” his mother says. “Short grapevine.”

Billy stares are her silently, and when he realizes it his turns to speak he simply says, “Oh.”

She steps toward and Billy remains still. She lifts her hands, but seems unsure where to touch him. She winces a bit when her eyes land on the tip of scar poking out from beneath Billy’s shirt. Billy looks follows her gaze. He touches the scar lightly. When he looks back at her, he feels his own tears building up. 

“You knew?” he asks.

“Your father called me,” she says. “From the hospital.”

“You didn’t come,” Billy says.

“He wouldn’t have let me see you,” she tells him. 

“You didn’t try,” Billy says. 

“Billy-” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“You never tried,” he says, voice louder than its been in months, so loud it hurts his throat. 

“Billy, please.”

“Was I never going to see you again?” Billy asks.

“Billy.”

“If I didn’t come here,” he says, “would you have ever come to find me?” Her silence only angers him more. He feels sick to his stomach, but not quiet in the way he had been months ago under hot fluorescent lights. He feels his heart hammering hard in his chest and he thinks it might jump out of his throat. He swallows it down and with a rogue tear trailing down one cheek he says, “You left me with him.”

“Oh, Billy,” his mother says, and this time when she takes a step toward him he steps away.

“You left me with him,” Billy repeats. “After everything, you-” _you abandoned me, you saved yourself, you left me alone, you let him hurt me; I trust you, you were supposed to protect me, you let him take me away._ There are too many words clamoring to be said and Billy can’t fit them all in his mouth. His breathing gets heavy and he starts to pace. His mother’s outstretched hands hover in the air, wanting to reach for him but not able to get a grip. “You promise me,” he says suddenly, stopping in his tracks and facing her with red-rimmed eyes. “You promised me we’d get away. You’d promised me you’d leave him, and then you _left_. You got out. You got out and you left me there!” He is yelling now, and when she flinches it makes his chest ache, but he can’t stop himself. He moves towards her, his chest puffed out, his shoulders back, and she fights to hold her ground. She grabs his shoulders and he feels his resolve crumble. He tries to scream at her, but only chokes out a sob.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, over and over again as she tangles her arms around his shoulders, wider and broader than they used to be. He towers over her now, and she has to stand on her tip toes to hug him - to hold him. She squeezes him, and Billy stands stiffly in her arms, his head hovering over her shoulder, his tears falling on her sleeve and on her skin. She keeps saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Billy, I’m sorry.”

“Stop,” he says, and when she doesn’t hear him he says it louder. “Stop!”

He pushes her away, and she stumbles backwards, stunned but not exactly surprised. Billy shakes his head. He paces one way and then the other. He rubs his chin. He turns away. “I don’t know why I came here,” he says quietly. 

The waves lap at the shore, smooth and steady and undisturbed by the scene he’s made. The sea foam fizzles over the sand and when it is gone it leaves the surface smooth, as if no one has ever walked on the beach, as if no one has ever touched it. Billy’s hand finds his scar again, and he feels its ridges as he watches the water crash agains the land. 

“I’m sorry sounds shitty right now,” his mother says. “I know that.” Billy doesn’t look at her. He keeps watching the water, watching the gulls dip and dive into the sea. “It’s not enough,” she goes on. “And it’s going to take a long time to explain everything. And I don’t blame you if you don’t want to hear it.” She lets her words linger, and when Billy says nothing- when he doesn’t turn around, when he holds his silence -she asks, “Do you have a place to stay?”

“Motel,” Billy says without looking at her. His voice is still shaky, and he fights hard to steady it. “The one off Bayberry.”

“Right,” his mother says, as if she should have known this. “Well, I’m on Wilmot Street now. Number eleven, the one with the little green shutters. If the motel feels lonely…” She trails off, and Billy finally turns around. “You don’t have to,” she says. “But you’re welcome to stay.”

Billy neither accepts nor rejects her offer. He simply watches her, his eyes still watery and red, his breath still ragged and labored. She drops her gaze to the sand. She sucks in her breath. 

“I work at the Sand Bar now,” she says. “You remember it?”

Billy nods his head. The Sand Bar is the little off-the-beach shack where she used to take him for lunch before the beach or dinner, before the drunks took it over for the night. 

“I’ll be there at noon tomorrow,” she says, “if you want to stop by. We can talk. Or not talk. It’s up to you.” Billy nods again, and she says, “Okay.” She looks at him, sadness in her eyes, and she sighs deeply and repeats, “Okay.”

She doesn’t say goodbye when she walks away, and as Billy watches her walk back along the sand he finds that he can’t remember if she said goodbye the first time. Her exit had been hasty then, much like his own escape from Hawkins. It had happened so quickly Billy can’t recall the details. He doesn’t remember what she was wearing the last time he saw her or what the last thing she said to him was before she became a crackling voice on the other end of the phone. 

But she is here now, and he is, too. And maybe that means something. 


End file.
